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Child Holocaust survivors share their stories

Everyone knows about the 6 million. Beth Cohen, a religious-studies lecturer at CSUN, wanted to focus on a different number as she convened a March 26 panel discussion on campus with three child survivors of the Holocaust.
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April 1, 2015

Everyone knows about the 6 million. Beth Cohen, a religious-studies lecturer at CSUN, wanted to focus on a different number as she convened a March 26 panel discussion on campus with three child survivors of the Holocaust.

“Perhaps what is lesser known is that 1.5 million children were killed — that there were roughly 150,000 children left,” she said. “About 90 percent of Jewish children were murdered.”

Those who remain share unique stories that reveal much not just about the state of Europe before World War II, but of those who made survival possible. Three such survivors — Peter Daniels, Marie Kaufman and Eva Katz Brettler — spoke about their experiences during the event sponsored by the CSUN Jewish Studies Interdisciplinary Program

Kaufman, 74, was born in 1941 and made it through the war hidden in a tiny village in the south of France. Among those who protected her were five teenagers from two families. 

“It was their parents who told them, ‘Here is this little girl, and here are these people, and we have to take care of them,’ ” Kaufman told an audience of about 50 people. “Imagine being 13 and being told, ‘You are responsible, and you have to watch this child.’ ”

Kaufman assisted the teenagers in their daily chores on the farm where she and her mother were hiding, while her mother would travel to various farms to help out where she was needed. The village mayor also played a role in securing the safety of Kaufman and her mother by sending over a priest to create false baptism papers. When Kaufman’s sister was born in 1943, the priest also organized a fake baptism in the church for the baby. 

“We were hidden visibly — my mother and I,” Kaufman said. “My father was invisibly hidden.”

Before the occupation of the area, Kaufman’s father worked in a cement factory. But when a policeman arrived at the factory in 1942 to arrest him and take him to a labor camp, the owner of the factory lied and said he was not there. For about six months, Kaufman’s father hid in a cave, and her mother brought him food and other necessities after dark. When that became too dangerous, he hid in the basement of the house for the next 2 1/2 years.

After the war, they came to the United States in 1951. When Kaufman returned to France to meet her rescuers in 1996 to hear what they had to say — she was too young to have detailed memories of her own — she brought her son with her.

“As they hugged [my son] and embraced him, they said, ‘Now, we understand what we did,’ ’’ she said. “Because of what we did, you have a mother. You’re here.’ And now, I have four grandchildren.”

Daniels, 78, was born in Berlin in 1936 and had a lonely childhood. His father left for China, and he and his mother lived alone after his grandfather died in 1940. He was not even allowed to attend school because he was Jewish.

“I had no friends whatsoever,” Daniels said. “The Nuremberg Laws had prevented me from going to preschool or school.” 

His mother got a job at a factory, but she had to leave him at home from an early age. Daniels recalled having to wear a yellow star when he was out in public and reporting to the police station every six months until 1943, when he and his mother were arrested and put into cattle cars.

“We were taken to Czechoslovakia,” he said. “I don’t know how long we were in there. We were taken to Theresienstadt. I was sent to the barracks where the children were, and my mother was sent to the barracks where the adults were.”

Daniels talked about how he and his mother were almost sent to Auschwitz in 1944. He believes the reason why his mother was able to save them was because she was  only half-Jewish.

“Even though her mother had converted to Judaism, she was still considered a Christian,” he said. “She showed them her baptismal papers, saying that she was half-Jewish. However, because I had three Jewish grandparents, I was considered to be a full Jew. That was the formula that was used by the Nazis.”

The camp was liberated in 1945 by the Soviets, but because of a typhus epidemic, the gates of the camps were closed for an additional month. In 1947, he traveled by ship into New York Harbor with other refugees.

“I came to the U.S. with no schooling and no English,” said Daniels, who had taught himself simple reading in German and math during the days when he had stayed home alone waiting for his mother to return from work.

Brettler, 78, was born in Cluj, Romania, in 1936. She grew up as an only child in a religious home. Her father was a printmaker, and her mother was a hat maker.

“I was quite a bit spoiled,” Brettler said. “She loved to make me cute, little outfits with matching hats.”

Her family had to move to Budapest, Hungary, in 1941 after her father lost his job because he was Jewish. A couple of years later, Brettler’s mother took Brettler to stay with her maternal grandmother and aunt. While visiting, Hungarian policemen came to the home and told her grandmother she had to pack her things, because she was being taken to a labor camp.

“I was told to hide in the cornfield,” Brettler said. “I hid in the cornfield. I watched as my grandmother and my young aunt joined the other people who were walking to the railroad station.” 

Later, Brettler and her mother were to be taken to Ravensbrück, the women’s camp in Germany. During the march there, Brettler lost her mother, who she believes was shot by the soldiers after complaining of her bleeding feet and asking to ride on the wagon with her daughter. A woman Brettler called “Tante” or aunt cared for her while she was in Ravensbrück. 

Later, Brettler was transferred to Bergen-Belsen, which was liberated in April 1945. Brettler’s first memory of the liberation was of a British soldier who picked her up and gave her a chocolate bar.

“I ate the chocolate all by myself,” she said. “I became very sick, and I figured that was the penalty you get when you don’t share your goodies.”

Sarah Moskovitz, professor emerita of education psychology and counseling at CSUN and author of “Love Despite Hate: Child Survivors of the Holocaust and Their Adult Lives,” also spoke on how she met with and interviewed each survivor. 

“What a privilege it is to hear of such resilience, such strength, coming from little children,” Moskovitz said, describing the stories of the child survivors. 

“The loneliness that Peter lived with; the fear for her father that Marie lived with, the various losses that Eva kept having. And despite that, all three of them are people who have made interesting lives for themselves, are not bogged down with endless depression as some people who have lived through these things are.”

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